


transmogrification

by bxzukhov (nbs4)



Category: Moby Dick - Herman Melville
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 15:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17880611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nbs4/pseuds/bxzukhov
Summary: "thus does the image of queequeg, 'rising with great force,' emerge from the ocean's depths to rescue ishmael, and thus does queequeg's death become ishmael's life."





	transmogrification

**Author's Note:**

> title and summary quote taken directly from page 234-235 of https://books.google.com/books?id=Kb6FdqTDOQIC
> 
> (general idea of the fic inspired by the concept described on those pages too)

    the first thing queequeg saw was his own coffin, the wooden mirror he had carved his own sacred markings into. he tried to reach for it, but it was too late— water had filled his lungs, everything had already gone black, and his fingers slipped right through the pine. knowing not what else to do, he followed the coffin as it rose, shot up out of the murky waters.

    (right before he and his twin-by-carving reached air, he inadvertently caught a glimpse of not just his own still body, but the frozen figures of nearly the entire crew getting smaller and smaller as they sunk deeper and deeper. queequeg shuddered, but even as he did, he knew that he had definitely not seen ishmael in that horrible graveyard, and followed his coffin upwards).

    when the pair emerged in the howling air, queequeg spotted him within an instant. how could he not?

    (he had never officially decided what his stance was on that very european concept of “fate,” but it seemed to matter a lot to ishmael, and as most things of that nature went, queequeg had gained a sense of reverence for it. this is not to say that he didn’t maintain his fierce independence from white society; his tattoos prevented him from ever fully accepting the world he had thrust himself into, in part because they marked him as an outsider, but also because he had to look at them whenever he looked at himself, and he wouldn’t have been able to look at either any more if he had ever renounced his birthplace or his culture).

    and yet despite queequeg’s wariness towards words like “fate” and “destiny,” he couldn’t help but feel as though this was exactly how things were going to turn out from the moment he clapped eyes on that frightened, naive schoolteacher in his bed back in new bedford. now that queequeg’s form was no longer held down by gravity, he felt his thoughts rise and float about in the air in much the same manner, and somewhere in the back of his mind he imagined ishmael going on at length about the irony of a ship, the freest of all modes of transportation, bound by no landmarks or geographical features, seeming to travel along a set path towards destruction and despair.

    he thought about what he, or any of them, could have done to prevent this outcome. 

    but this train of thought was interrupted by an unearthly sensation that queequeg felt running along his back. when he turned towards his coffin, he realized that ishmael had latched himself onto it, and was now the only man above water.  

    and when queequeg floated towards the very-much-alive man, and tried to put his arms around him, and felt his warmth, but knew that he no longer had any warmth to share himself, he could have sworn that the coffin shuddered slightly, and ishmael could have sworn that the wood became easier to grasp.


End file.
